While Andrea and Rick are getting ready for bed, Rick mentions he’s worried about Carl so he left his door open so he could make sure Carl is safe. Rick eventually catches Carl sneaking out to go see the tiger and tells him to go back to bed. Michonne is smiling as she gets to her room, which nearly makes her forget to hold her katana while she sleeps. Meanwhile in the Hilltop, Jesus and Gregory are getting at each other’s throats because of the extreme measures Jesus and Rick must go through to free the Hilltop from Negan and his clan. In a conversation that Maggie has with another woman, we discover that everyone things Gregory is incompetent and creepy, but keeps him in charge anyway. Andrea is training snipers when Rick approaches her and asks her about how many good shots they have. Ezekiel has about 30 men and Rick has about 20 so that puts their forces at about 50 without including whoever Jesus can wrangle up against Negan’s 60+. Rick is feeling slightly optimistic in conversation because they don’t see Negan’s men using a lot of guns so they’re hoping that the ammo will give them the advantage. Oh yeah, also the tiger.
Meanwhile, Michonne is training someone with swords when Ezekiel arrives. They tease each other a little bit and are interrupted by a man informing them that Jesus has arrived and they all gather in the Grand Hall to start devising a battle strategy.
Negan comes early to the Hilltop to gather supplies and when a woman named Olivia tells him they’re running low he says that he’d like to have sex with her since he’ll be staying in a vacant house until Rick comes back from gathering supplies. Negan is relaxing on a front porch when Spencer approaches him to warn him about Rick and say that Rick is ruining the Hilltop and things were better off when his dad was in charge. Negan talks about how Rick is sucking up his anger and hatred for him and going out and looking for supplies to keep the people of Hilltop safe while Spencer waits for Rick to be gone to try and convince Negan to kill Rick and put him in charge.
This rubs Negan the wrong way and he asks Spencer why he hasn’t killed Rick and Spencer stutters and Negan says he doesn’t have any guts and stabs him in the stomach and kills him.
This issue leads off with a slow start. I’m not sure what purpose the beginning scene with Andrea and Rick serves. It doesn’t give us any new information because anyone who has been reading Walking Dead knows that Rick is always worried about Carl. Anyway. I feel like this issue had a bit more of unnecessary set up when I was first reading it, however there was a great payoff at the end with the death of Spencer. We’ve been in the Hilltop for so long and it’s getting so old and tired now. I want it to finish soon, but it still looks like they’re dragging out the final confrontation with Negan.